SMC 2008 - The IEEE International Conference
 

 

 

 
 
 
Review of the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820T

acer aspire 4820TThe Aspire TimelineX 4820T is a new Acer's solution that matches performance, compact size and nice battery life in a small 14-inch notebook for people who are always on the go. It is lightweight and slim and its system is based on Intel Corei3-330M CPU.

It is the latest iteration in the product line of Acer's thin mainstream laptops. Visually it is an improved version of its previous model Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T, which is also very slim and light.

The new 4820T laptop has the Acer logo allocated at the center of the dark gray screen lid with a polished surface. The inside reveals a silver gray palmrest strip and touchpad with a black keyboard deck. The 14-inch LED-backlit glossy display of the laptop has a widescreen 1366x768px resolution. The aspect ratio is 16:9 and ideal for high-definition content from the Internet. Screen quality of the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820T is considered to be very good, as the display is evenly lit throughout and bright. As it is glossy, the screen can display rich and vibrant colours, which is especially important for watching movies. But it doesn't mean the text is shown badly; working on office documents also seems to be pretty comfortable.

Other features that were improved in Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820T in comparison to its forerunners are touchpad and keyboard. The chiclet-styled keys of the latter are well-sized and designed to be optimally laid out on the deck. The typing experience with a nice tactile feedback has strokes and brings you the exact delight you expect. On the top right corner of the keyboard you may find a quick-launch key, which is customizable for any program you prefer. The button of ejecting the DVD drive was removed to the top of the keyboard, which is a non-standard though interesting solution.

In comparison to the Dell Inspiron 14R laptops, Acer Aspire 5740G, and the Dell Studio 14 Artist Edition notebooks the TimelineX 4820T shows the best performance. Synthetic benchmark WorldBench 6 revealed score of 81, which was the best in the row. PCMark 05 showed 5079, 3D Mark 06 – 1465. These are not the best results but not the worst either. In everyday use TimelineX 4820T is great in multitasking - watching movies, listening to music, web browsing and working with documents at the same time causes no lags or problems at all.

Though there is no discrete graphic card for playing high-performance games, nothing can stop you from watching HD-films on a slim laptop TimelineX 4820T. Tests show that movies with a definition of 720p or 1080p may be played on the 4820T as well as it only can be. Audio-visual experience is excellent, the picture is smooth and without any possible stutter. Moreover, TimelineX 4820T's in-built speakers that are placed between the hinge and keyboard supplement the experience with Dolby Home Theater virtual surround sound, which is in turn quite loud. Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820T is definitely a right choice for pumping out music and watching movies in a small conference hall or a medium-sized room.